1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a wireless base station detection technique, and more particularly, to a system and method for detecting wireless base stations on the information-processing platform.
2. Description of Related Art
In the conventional node detection technique, the detection request is repeatedly sent so as for the information-processing platform (computer) to detect beacons or wireless base station within a short time, and the detection request often halts on every channel, and the wireless base station responds with packets to continuously return the detection response. However, in the conventional technique, it is difficult to reduce the number of the base stations required and detections sent by base stations in terms of issuing of detection requests and to lower the wasted traveling time required by the packets due to continuous detections. Further, since the bandwidth is occupied over a long period of time due to continuous detections, the downloading and uploading efficiencies of the WLAN are decreased significantly.
In addition, the detection requests to be transmitted and the detection responses to be received are increased in response to the increased number of the wireless base stations, thereby disadvantaging the integrations of packets and leading to insufficient network bandwidth.
Furthermore, even if more information-processing platforms are added, each information-processing platform still repeatedly sends the detection request to the wireless base station and its corresponding channel, and the wireless base station in turn returns the detection response to the information-processing platform. Therefore the cost is increased due to the time spent on the above repeating procedure.
In order to overcome the above-mentioned problem, Taiwan Patent No. 12854487 discloses a system and method for expanding the service range of the wireless base station. FIG. 1 illustrates the conventional switching system in a wireless base station, wherein the wireless LAN Card, with the embedded switching system and method, expands the wireless base station service range. Idle wireless LAN card switches itself to function as a wireless network repeater in order to expand the service range of the wireless base station.
As shown in FIG. 1, the information-processing platform 10′ includes a wireless LAN Card 17′, wherein the information-processing platform 10′ are connected to the wireless base station 20′ via the wireless LAN Card 17′. The information-processing platform 10′ is a computer, personal digital assistance (PDA) or other equivalent data equipment. On the information-processing platform 10′, the wireless LAN Card 17′ with software upgrade provides a switching system, so as for the wireless LAN Card 17′ to switch between functions of wireless network repeater and wireless LAN Card in accordance with the actual situation.
The conventional switching system includes a detection module 11′, a switch module 13′ and a software module 15′, wherein the detection module 11′ judges whether the internal operating system 19′ of the information-processing platform 10′ contains software applications to provide Internet services. The application is one selected from a group consisting of web browser, e-mail applications and other software using the wireless LAN Card. The state (IDLE/ACTIVE) of the wireless LAN Card 17′ is obtained according to the judgment generated by the detection module 11′. The switch module 13′ provides the wireless LAN Card 17′ with a switching system based on the judgment of the detection module 11′, so as for the wireless LAN Card 17′ to switch between the functions of wireless network repeater and wireless LAN Card in accordance with the actual situation.
The Internet application software is switched by the wireless LAN Card 17′ to the function of the wireless network repeater when the wireless LAN Card 17′ is idle without the need to connect to the Internet via the wireless LAN Card 17′, thereby extending the service range of the wireless base station 20′. However, as the user requires wireless network connection via the wireless LAN Card 17′ again, then the software corresponding to the wireless LAN Card 17′ is resumed to perform various functions of the wireless LAN Card 17′. Therefore when the detection module 11′ determines that the current information-processing platform 10′ is executing applications for providing the Internet service, the switch module 13′ switches the wireless LAN Card 17′ to use the wireless LAN Card software 153′. When the detection module 11′ determines that the current information-processing platform 10′ is not executing the applications for providing the Internet service, the switch module 13′ switches the wireless LAN Card 17′ to use the wireless network repeater software 151′. Hence, the software is switched by the wireless LAN Card 17′ without any manual operations, so as to switch the wireless LAN Card 17′ between the wireless LAN Card 17′ and the wireless network repeater.
The above-mentioned patent invention indeed switches the wireless LAN Card 17′ to a state in which the wireless network repeater software 151′ is used and achieves the switching efficiency of the wireless base station. However, when establishing a connection with the wireless base station, it is difficult to achieve speedy and hardly interrupted connection, as the above-mentioned prior art involves repeating transmissions of the detection request to the wireless base station 20′ and waiting for the detection response, thereby wasting time and resources in packet transmissions. Also, the above-mentioned prior art does not solve the problem of bandwidth occupation.
Therefore, it has become a highly urgent issue in the wireless base station field to effectively solve the above conventional disadvantages, and to reduce the number of the wireless base stations installed as well as the time and resources required in detecting packet transmissions by the wireless base stations, so as to more efficiently use the network bandwidth.